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Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

Rumor has it they don't do this in warm countries. Spain for instance is supposed to have a late night culture where people eat dinner at 9PM. Seems to be true based on what my Spanish friends say.

But generally you're right. I don't get it, what's the fuss about doing things early? Artificial light has existed for a long time now, why not get up a little later, relax, eat, chat a bit, and then go do whatever it is?

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Spain is a complicated example because it's also in the 'wrong' timezone - it's on Central European Time (UTC+1), and should be really be on UTC.

So if people are living their lives roughly aligned to the sun, then they'll naturally wake and sleep later.

It would be interesting to contrast that with Athens which is more aligned to the correct timezone for their longitude.

But doesn't Spain's culture of late nights and siestas date from long before anyone bothered to coordinate clocks?

[edit: added "from", extended "any" to "anyone". Perhaps I'm less efficient early in the morning than I supposed.]

I could certainly believe that. Another interesting comparison would be with Portugal, which is in some ways culturally similar to Spain, but maintains UTC.

There is a push in Spain to try and re-align the timezone - see for instance this Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/22/spania...

If the EU plan to abolish the clock-change, and at the same time allow countries to choose which time-zone to adopt actually happens it will be interesting to see if the Spanish government chooses to use this opportunity to switch to UTC.

Sure, but the point is that if you control for the effect of timezone displacement and just look at the sun, which is probably what originally shaped schedules in different human cultures, there's not that much difference between sleep and meal times in Spain and neighboring countries. Most of the perceived difference comes from the fact that a Spanish clock will be showing a later hour than most other countries when the sun is at a given point in the sky.

For example, I'm from Spain, and according to some quick searches, solar noon where I am today was at 13:47 (vs. 12:09 in New York, 12:14 in London, 12:20 in Berlin, 12:50 in Lisbon, 13:04 in Paris). So it's no wonder most Spanish people have lunch at around 14 (equivalent to eating at 12:22 in New York) and dinner past 21.

By the way, siesta culture is more of a stereotype than a real thing by now. I don't know anyone who regularly naps during the workweek (except kids and elderly). I guess it might still happen among physical workers in hot agricultural areas of the south, where you're not going to work the fields after noon under the scorching sun, but it's not a reality for the overwhelming majority of people.

I am from Greece. I cannot remember if our classes started at 0800 or 0900. But I remember that exams did start at 0800.

> what's the fuss about doing things early?

I feel like it has to do a lot with the most recent industrial revolution and how factories had to operate, and the school systems built around that. Most of places and industries, it hasn’t gone anywhere.

And I guess it won’t until we solve the problem of massive energy generation for pennies, orders of magnitude more than we have now, and bump up production output everywhere across the board, with AI or else.

The industrial revolution made us get up with the chickens?

Winter with a fairly-common work-and-getting-the-kids-places schedule means getting up before the chickens.

I actually think it'd be great if we could have seasonal work schedules. Winter work days should be 6 hours, not 8. Let the whole of society hibernate a bit. Leave at least one or two daylight hours that aren't taken up by work or commute.

> Winter work days should be 6 hours, not 8.

That'd be offset by having to work 15 during the summer. Up here in Alberta our shortest days are 7.5 hours and longest are 17.

I have always felt that my system wants to go into low power mode in the winter. It feels very unnatural to work full time in the winter. And working longer hours in the summer feels natural as well. I think you are on to something.

In Sweden the industrial revolution brought on 8 hour shifts for around the clock production (IIRC). Something like 06-14,14-22,22-06. Could be similar.

> I don't get it, what's the fuss about doing things early?

Because a brisk early morning when the sun rises is sublime. In that regard, I totally support people who need to sleep in -- because the only thing better than a brisk early morning sunrise is a quiet one. No rushing about, just relax and enjoy how peaceful it is before the day ramps up. It's energizing.

Growing up I played (American) football in the south and during camp we would be up at 430 to do county fairs (a type of brutal workout). It always ended right as the sun was coming up at 6. The feeling knowing that most hellish part of the day was over and watching that sunrise covered in mud and probably still out of breath during the coolest part of the day on the way to breakfast was something almost heavenly. I'll still do metcon type workouts in the morning just to get that feeling.

Yes, maximizing daylight is critical in colder climates. You want to capture as much sunlight as possible in your 16 waking hours, which often means starting your day during the foreglow before sunrise.

I'm a night owl from southern California, and when I lived in England for a bit I was surprised to find how depressing it was to enter the world at noonish, only for the sun to set after a few hours, and then having to resign myself to the indoors shortly after that. It was just a dreary way to live. (Yes, I realize England isn't even that cold.)

I like the nights, but I also love having the option to be out and about in the warm evenings. When those mild evenings are taken away, there's more motivation for people to callus themselves to the early morning alarm clocks.

I understand the French tend to do the late-dinner thing, too. 8-9PM being a common start time for dinner, even at home.

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